Quote:
Originally Posted by covingtoncat73
That is a good question. I googled and apparently this book, written in 1865, Book of Werewolves, is a study of werewolf mythology but touches on serial killings. I blame the current glut (as in the last 20 years) of serial killer novels on Silence of the Lambs.
http://www.amazon.com/Book-Werewolve.../dp/1605201138 |
That's a good example. When I was in my early teens, I remember seeing woodcuts from an old pamplet about the crimes and torture/execution of a notorious "werewolf" -- I'm pretty sure it was Peter Stumpp, a German werewolf. I also read about Gilles Garnier, a French hermit executed for being a werewolf. The Stumpp pamphlet was a 1590 British translation of the German original. (Stumpp was executed in 1589, so I'm amazed that the British translation came out only a year later. That pamphlet was their equivalent of a CNN broadcast.) Those would count as nonfiction of course, but it shows how far back these accounts go. (And I'm sure they weren't entirely truthful, either.
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After poking the Internetz a while, the first fictional account I can find is the Bluebeard story by Charles Perrault (1697). I always thought that case was based on notorious serial killer Gilles de Rais (1404–1440), but it seems some experts disagree and say he may have been inspired by existing folklore. There might have been earlier examples. It's hard to say as books, pamphlets, etc. didn't always survive.
Later on, another early example is Sweeney Todd -- the original penny dreadful was published in 1846-1847. There is an expert who believed it was based on a real case, but most other experts dispute his findings.
Of course, this also depends on how you define a serial killer. Some experts believe only sexual murders should be called serial killings, while others use the term in a more general form. For example, some experts would not count rulers such as Vlad Tepes, but they would include Countess Elizabeth Bathory because of the sexual aspect of the murders. Other experts include anyone who commits more than two murders for "anger, thrill, financial gain, and attention seeking." So would you include fictional accounts of a historical fiend? Would you include mysteries where one person kills many people for financial gain or out of revenge? In that case, some of the Sherlock Holmes cases and some of the other Agatha Christie cases might count.
Under fictional serial killers, Wiki includes "Barabas the Jew" from Marlowe's play The Jew of Malta. Sheehsh!
If we include him as a serial killer, then why not Shakespeare's Richard the Third? Or Middleton and Roweley's De Flores from the play The Changeling (even if he killed for financial gain and to have sex with Beatrice/Joanna, not necessarily in that order)? Heck, so would Medea in the play by Euripdes (431 BCE). Argh!
I give up!
